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Airlines policy story

There is a story out of Australia about 2 airlines that have policies that say males are prohibited from sitting next to unaccompanied minors. Specifically this piece is what I am going to talk about:

Recent Virgin airlines passenger, John McGirr claims Virgin airlines treated him like a sexual predator on a flight to Sydney. He claims a flight attendant asked him to move saying he was not allowed to sit next to children because he was male. According to Mr McGirr the flight attendant walked up the aisle and tried to find a female to swap seats with him.

Virgin airlines has declined an interview, but in a statement they say their policy is “based on customer feedback and is common to many airlines”.

Wow. This is obviously discriminatory and I really wonder how this policy came to be. I mean with 25% of child sexual abuse committed by a female and more importantly usually it is not a stranger, male or female, that sexually abuses the child, how can anyone justify this? You can read the full article here.

This is also another reason why we try to raise awareness. I mean heck we don’t they just make a male only section in the back of the planes? I would be beyond offended if this had happened to me or one of my loved ones.

What makes me angry is that all kinds of people, in these articles and comments, spent all kinds of time quantifying how the risk to children statistically wasn’t large, *but still assumed that only males are pedophiles and rapists*! Almost no-one spoke of the very real danger to children by female perpetrators. Sheesh. We have a long way to go…